Suchergebnisse

This article documents Canada's main public policy responses to promote income security among working-age adults during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis between March and early June 2020. This period of rapid policy change unfolded broadly in three phases, starting with minor adjustments to existing policy instruments, followed by larger amendments to a wider range of programs, and finally ending with the creation of new and quite generous benefits. The pathway of policy change is best described as incremental, but it resulted in a more radical shift to "trust but verify" to administer benefits rather than the pre–COVID-19 practice of verifying eligibility before paying benefits. The reasons and precedents for this decision are discussed. I conclude with some observations on the applicability and limitations of trust but verify for income security policy in the post–COVID-19 period.

AbstractThere is no unifying theory to guide the study of partisan political staff. The literature suggests staffers may be variously mechanisms for resolving principal-agent problems, extensions of centralized political control or spoils given as rewards inside the core executive. Annual Public Accounts data, available only since 2007, offer a promising new addition to the debate over federal exempt staffs. This paper presents descriptive and linear regression results on staffing expenditures for five years of federal data in Canada. Using the construct of "revealed preference," predictors of variance in ministerial spending on staffing may provide new, objective information on their function in Canadian government. Results of this study demonstrate that quantitative methods can be applied to the study of political staff and may be a helpful addition as the field continues to develop, test and refine theory.

The Canada Revenue Agency administers dozens of cash transfer programs that require an annual personal income tax return to establish eligibility. Approximately 10–12 percent of Canadians, however, do not file a return; as a result, they will not receive the benefits for which they are otherwise eligible. In this article, we provide the first estimates of the number and characteristics of non-filers. We also estimate that the value of cash benefits lost to working-age non-filers was $1.7 billion in 2015. Previous literature suggests either a rational choice model of tax compliance (in which the costs of filing are weighed against its benefits) or a more complex behavioural model. Our study has important consequences for policy-making in terms of the administrative design and fiscal costs of public cash benefits attached to tax filing, the measurement of household incomes, and poverty rates.

A household is considered asset poor if its assets (financial assets or net worth, taken separately) are insufficient to maintain well‐being at a low‐income threshold for 3 months. We provide the first national‐level estimates of asset poverty for Canada, using the 1999, 2005, and 2012 cycles of the Survey of Financial Security, and juxtapose these estimates with income poverty. The analysis provides new insight into economic insecurity by showing that asset poverty rates are consistently two to three times higher than income poverty rates. In addition to the prevalence of asset poverty across socio‐demographic groups, we analyzed how the composition of the poor change over time. Age and geography shape the risk for asset poverty in distinct ways. We found that while education appears to play a comparable role in shaping both income poverty and asset poverty, immigration places Canadians at a relatively higher risk of income poverty but not asset poverty.Key Practitioner Message: • Practitioners ought to consider assets as well as income in assessing economic vulnerability; • Asset poverty levels are 2–3 times higher than income poverty levels; • Certain groups (e.g., immigrants) may be income poor but maintain sufficient assets.

AbstractBoth Canada and the United States are considered liberal welfare states, yet exhibit notable differences in income poverty attributed to social policy. While a more generous welfare system lifts many above income poverty, models of household financial behaviour suggest that more income from the state should displace private savings via a substitution effect. Using nationally representative wealth surveys from Canada and the US from 1998/1999 to 2016 we extend knowledge on the relationship between the welfare state and private wealth accumulation. Specifically, we study household asset poverty defined as financial asset levels that fall below three‐month adjusted income poverty threshold. Asset poverty rates varied over time in the two countries and were higher in the less generous US welfare state. Further, income transfer share was positively related to asset poverty in Canada but not in the US. Counterfactual estimates offered evidence of the substitution effect in Canada, where higher levels of transfers may crowd out private asset accumulation. Results invite further consideration of the concept of asset poverty and its relationship to welfare state characteristics.

Les personnes à faible revenu qui ne produisent pas de déclaration de revenus au Canada passent à côté de plusieurs avantages importants versés dans le cadre du régime fiscal et peuvent éprouver de la difficulté à vérifier leur admissibilité à d'autres produits et services publics affectés en fonction du revenu. L'Agence du revenu du Canada (ARC) pourrait produire des déclarations simplifiées pour de nombreuses familles à faible revenu, que les déclarants pourraient corriger. D'après la Banque de données administratives longitudinales, les auteurs estiment que cette approche pourrait être utile pour plus de la moitié des familles faisant partie du cinquième le plus bas de la répartition du revenu et de 60 % à 88 des familles qui se prévalent de programmes provinciaux d'aide au revenu. Ils estiment également que jusqu'à 4,6 millions de déclarations des personnes ayant un revenu inférieur à 25 000 $, que l'ARC considère comme simplifiées, ont été produites par un préparateur commercial ou un logiciel, ce qui fait ressortir les avantages potentiels de la production de déclarations déjà remplies par l'ARC dans de telles situations.